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It’s all a bit of a time-wasting nonsense really.
Yeah. It took several hours … well, minutes … about two seconds, actually, for the secretary to store the strata roll in his secure digital vault.
The alternative was a bitter and nasty battle with the strata manager – one of the biggest and most influential in the country – that looked to be headed for a Tribunal hearing while the credibility of the new committee, representing a lot of people who had never lived in strata before, was undermined by the people who DID have access to their email addresses.
All we needed to do was undercut their central argument against following the law by making it look like they had won a concession when in fact they had lost.
Yeah, a complete waste of time. Obviously we should have gone to the barricades and lived with all the damage that would have done.
Have a listen to this week’s podcast (when I put it online) if you are really interested.
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If you’re saying that the owners corp tradies caused the problem when they were trying to fix another problem, then, yes, you can claim against the OC.
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This information sheet says that lot owners are responsible for both internal walls and water damage where the source is inside the lot. According to your floor plan, both apply here.
However, if the unit is less than six years old, the developer or builder may be responsible for poor workmanship. I don’t think this has anything to do with the strata scheme or building manager as it seems it is not common property and isn’t affecting another lot.
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By the way, before I proposed my compromise, the strata manager wanted us to put a motion on the agenda that basically said we took responsibility for any security breaches etc etc. The way it was worded was to make the owners think that we were irresponsible, and their personal information was in serious peril. We just ignored it, put up a motion demanding access to the strata roll and had it passed, with my suggestion that the roll would be kept securely as an amendment.
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This was the introductory text on my newsletter last week:
There’s been an interesting development in my ongoing arm wrestle over access to the strata roll and email addresses of other owners in my new block in the country.
The strata managers – one of the biggest in NSW – were throwing up all sorts of obstacles to handing over the aforesaid documents.
However, the law says that all owners – especially the strata secretary – should have access to the strata roll and that the strata roll should have owners’ email addresses if they have such a thing (and who hasn’t, these days).
It was all starting to get a bit ugly with the strata managers claiming owners’ rights to privacy (although strata schemes are pretty much exempt from privacy laws) while yours truly was ready to man the barricades for the strata secretary’s right and occasional need to contact owners without having messages pass through the strata managers’ hands.
However, one argument against making email addresses available is the question of cyber security. What if the secretary clicks on a dodgy email and all their email addresses are broadcast far and wide or, even worse, infected with a crippling virus?
And then there are the keyboard warriors who have the time and twisted inclination to bombard neighbours with conspiracy theories and defamatory emails.
Then I had a brainwave. What if the strata secretary undertook to store the strata roll and email addresses in a secure location only accessible via firewalls using two stage security? Amid sighs of relief, the compromise was agreed and we move forward.
That could be a good model for all strata schemes where responsible committees are being denied access to the owners contact details. The keyboard warriors can fight their own battles.
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The standard SCA contract for strata managers is very lopsided, something the top people at SCA-NSW will admit … privately … but are doing nothing about except mumbling incoherently about reforms. The fact is that their membership would be up in arms if much was done to make the contracts more equitable, even though they cas a shadow over their much-vauinted “professional standards” status.
It will be intresting to see what the new unfair contracts provision being introduced by the NSW does to the picture. Meanwhile, I reckon you could challenge existing contracts on the basis that they have clauses that contravene the Act – such as withholding documents or charging for their provision when the law says they should be made available.
But be prepared for Strata Wars III if you tried that.
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That to me seems to be a harsh and unjust by law
We have a similar by-law in our environment award winning block because it was designed to be naturally cooled by a flow-through of air. However, it doesn’t work in all the apartments, it’s hard to control where it does, and there’s this thing called Global Warming that everyone is talking about.
But here’s the thing, because it was designed not to have air-con, the electricity supply isn’t up to providing the necessary power. The majority of owners would love to have air-con but aren’t keen to pony up with the couple of million bucks for a new substation.
I wonder if the OP’s scheme is in a similar situation, and all the nuts and bolts stuff is just another way of saying “no way”. If it does have similar limitations, the by-law is neither unreasonable nor oppressive.
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I understand the battles you are having with the strata managers but the solution agreed to is just bowing to them.
No, you don’t understand, because you don’t know the facts. I was dealing with a strata manager who was used to running the show and periodically updating owners on what was going on. Nothing sinister there – it’s just they way they usually worked and most of their clients were happy to go along with it.
When we asked for the strata roll, they refused to hand it over, saying it wasn’t their normal practise and in any case it was private. The former was irrelevant, the latter was not supported by any law that I know of.
When I wrote an email telling them that they were in breach of the Act, all Hell broke loose with their CEO chipping in with seriously unhelpful comments.
Then last week, I had a chat with Strata Commissioner John Minns and his offsider Lachlan Malloch and asked them for a definitive ruling on this. I didn’t get one.
Instead, it became apparent that, while the law is exactly as you have outlined in your post (and as I have constantly argued), it was written before corporate cyber attacks and before innocent people could click on the wrong apparently authentic email and find all their email addresses being posted on the dark web.
The feeling I got was that taking this argument to court or a tribunal was far from the slam-dunk you suggest. So I suggested the super-secure storage option. They would give the strata secretary the strata roll with email addresses and we would store it somewhere it was safe. Even I don’t have access to it.
If owners wanted use the email addresses – to which they are legally entitled – even to run a campaign against the strata committee, we would dutifully forward the emails provided they were legal, and neither offensive nor defamatory.
My personal view is if that wasn’t sufficient, they could take us to a tribunal and seek orders and, between you and me and the FlatChat faithful, I wouldn’t recommend spending a cent on lawyers to defend the case.
However, I might turn up myself, hook my thumbs in my waistcoat and say “cyber security – we’re protecting the owners from the dark web while ensuring they can communicate with each other.”
Now, as with the judge who had to have it explained what the Rolling Stones were, I might have to elucidate on the Dark Web, but I think I could give a random pod-botherer a run for their money.
So, bowing to the strata managers? They didn’t want us to have the strata roll and email addresses, now we have them – the conditions applied were those we, not they, suggested but they could live with them.
Meanwhile we have the opportunity to mend fences at the local level, communicate directly with the scheme’s ownership and in these, the early days of the strata scheme, right the ship and set a true course.
And we got what we wanted without going to a tribunal or a court; you must know that the five words a lawyer most wants to hear are: “It’s a matter of principle.”
And as an aside, the simplest way to make the roll non accessible is to store it on a USB stick (not on your computer or device) and put that in the top drawer. No cyber criminal will find it there.
Hmmm. Same difference. But when your local keyboard warrior demands the email addresses so they can spread conspiracy theories about the whole committee being in cahoots with the developer/strata manager/building manager/plumber (delete as necessary), what do you do then?
I know what I would do and I wouldn’t be bowing to anyone.
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As far as I know yes.
Hi Stu, can you copy and paste or use “quote” so we know what you are responding to? BTW, you are now officially a FlatChat Hero (and the very first, too)!
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I think the strata manger is correct. How do you silence a shower, a wardrobe?
Well, the simple answer would be that if carpet has been replaced by inadequately insulated tiles, and the block was designed to have carpetting on the floors, then replace the most effective form of insulation to cut down the noise.
Have a look at these guidelines from the Australian Association of Acoustical Consultants HERE and HERE. They explain how excessive noise in apartments can be a lot more than footfalls on tiles.
It gives me the extreme irrits when investors chose to cover their floors with the most durable (na noisiest) form of flooring so as to save themselves money, at the expense of the peace and quiet of the poor blighters below.
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This is really interesting and gives hope to OCs that are struggling with Strata Managers who are simply not doing their jobs.
Unfortunately, the OP (Stu) inadvertently breached our “non disclosure” rules by naming the sacked strata managers, their lawyers and, in also posting the findings as a PDF, all the residents who combined to take action. I have edited these and removed them.
One of the fascinating things about this is it seems (and I can only say “seems”) that the owners who joined in on the Tribunal action won’t have to pay a share of any of the costs incurred in defending the action – about $75,000. Worth thinking about when your neighbours come knocking, asking for your support in an action against anyone at the tribunal.
Having deleted the whole findings, here are grounds on which the owners requested the compulsory management:
(a) Failure to prepare a Capital Works estimate;
(b) Making a payment from the Capital Works fund in breach of s.74(4);4
(c) Spending excess amounts on items already in estimates;
(d) Spending Special Levy funds on items not relevant to the Special Levy;
(e) Refusing to deal with a lot owner’s managing agent;
(f) Failing to maintain common property;
(g) Failure to hold a meeting for Special Resolutions and failure to provide records of the Owners Corporation when requested.If you really want to read the whole findings, send Stu a PM (direct message) and I’m sure he’ll be happy to forward the pdf.
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some committees choose not to hold strata committee meetings and hence while there may be significant issues at the scheme and they may or may not be attended to.
In which case you you don’t buy in. There are no schemes in Australia that don’t have or have never had problems. It’s better to find records of a scheme that’s had issues and resolved them than to find no recorded issues at all.
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A) Does your by-laws insist on carpeting? If so, then your neighbour is breaching the by-laws.
That’s a very specific and quite uncommon by-law. By-laws on noise and disturbing other owners peaceful enjoyment of their lot are more likely to be in place. If the owner upstairs has lifted the carpet and put down tiles without proper insulation then they are likely to be in breach.
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For my education, could you please share why this is not good?
Do a search for posts by Flatchatter “Faraway Girl” – her issues will tell you everything you need to know about how things can go wrong.
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